Engaged!

On April 9th, 2011, Jeff Bryant and I were engaged. He did a great job! I'll show you just a glimpse of the day through pictures. Let me start off by saying (rather, bragging) that Jeff is one of the most creative people I know. The dates he thinks up are always fun and meaningful. So when he told me about his idea to do a second scavenger hunt (our 3rd date was a photo scavenger hunt together at Freedom park) with my brother-in-law and sister, Mitch and Lianne, I thought nothing of it. He had a few ideas, one of which was to take a picture of the couple's first date. I thought that was a great idea, seeing as how Mitch and Lianne's first date was pretty hilarious and so was mine and Jeff's. He told me to just call Lianne and see if they could do it. I agreed and called her the next day. She said she wasn't sure if she could do the Saturday we were thinking of because she and Mitch had something to do at 5pm. She said she'd get back to me. I ended up having to get in touch with her again four days before Saturday to see if she could still do it. She finally told me she could, so I let Jeff know. Little did I know he'd already pre-made the plans with them, schemer that he is. So when Saturday came around, I just thought we were in for a fun afternoon of picture taking and sharing stories. Here is what really happened:

We met at my house, where Jeff had a list of scavenger hunt items, blank sheets of paper, and crayons for each couple. Here is a picture of the well worn scavenger list after we finished (as you can see we got all the items on the list).

 
I knew about the first date one, so I had the brilliant idea to take a picture of me next to my car with the jumper cables from my trunk, because on our first date, my car wouldn't start and he had to come and jump start my car. We decided we'd finish the rest of our date reenactment when we got to the Dairy Barn.

 

Here is the first part of the reenactment. Notice my forlorn face.

Next we headed to Starbucks. Why? Because Jeff was the creator of the scavenger hunt and he needed caffeine. That's the perk of being the scavenger hunt list maker.

Mmm. That's a good cup of joe.

After Starbucks, the next logical geographical location was the River Walk, another place we were supposed to take a picture. So we headed there and walked the trail till we found a nice spot by the river. Jeff took a few pictures of me, and as we were switching to take one of him, a man walked by and asked if we wanted one together. We said yes and thanked him, to which he replied that he does what he can for young lovers. 

 

All by myself...

 Let's get together

Now, the reason for the blank sheets of paper and crayons was so that we could draw the pictures of the places we couldn't actually get to. So we sat by the river and reminisced over where we first met, where we first realized we were interested in each other, our favorite date, our first time holding hands, and our favorite place in Fort Mill (we didn't want to have to drive out there).

Check out these awesome drawings! Everything Jeff did was intentional, including the fact he only gave us crayons to draw with...less precision makes for funnier pictures.

Where we agreed we both knew we first met. (He had met me 2 weeks before at a youth event and I didn't remember it. We weren't formally introduced, okay?) I drew Jeff and he drew me and the room.

 Where we agreed we both figured out we liked each other.

One of the craziest camping trips ever...in the beginning of November...check out the non-existent fire. Although Jeff did get up every morning for us and start the fire so we would have somewhere warm to go when we woke up. How thoughtful :)

  Where we first held hands at his place after our third date...coincidently our first scavenger hunt date. Notice the pool table--artist credit to Jeff. I drew the TV, couch, and us.

Next was our favorite date, which would have to be Charleston.

Notice my throwing the frisbee horribly aimed and hitting him in the head. Showers at Liz's church. Then a nice dinner at the Post House.

And, just to throw it in here, here's what we really looked like:

 

 Can you believe I wore heels? 

Okay, okay. Back to the story.

 

So then we drew Luke's, not really our favorite restaurant in Fort Mill, but a memorable one. This is where he was officially going to ask me to be his girlfriend. It was so loud, he waited till after we got out of the restaurant. They have great wings though!

After we finished drawing, we headed to Bi-Lo to get an apple for Abe and take a picture of me with daisies, my favorite flower.

Oh daisies.

Here's one where Jeff was not completely grimacing ;) He was afraid Abe would bite off his fingers!

Now here's where everything got a little crazy. You see, the rest of our first date was spent at the Dairy Barn, feeding Abe, walking around, and going up into the silo that is right next to the Dairy Barn.  It was freezing that day, so we didn't spend very much time up there. But it was still such a sweet time. So I was excited about going to the barn and getting to enjoy the silo with him (there's a gorgeous view from the top) in warmer weather! Apparently Mitch had called ahead and told Jeff his first plan wasn't going to work out. My sweet boyfriend (now fiance) was planning on proposing to me at the top of the silo! But there just happened to be a wedding there that day, and the reception was in that exact area. So Mitch told him we could go down to the swinging bridge over the creek. But as we were heading that way, we saw Mitch and Lianne at a picnic table waiting for us. I had to use the bathroom so I went to do that and while I was gone, Mitch frantically explained that there were kids swarming around the creek and the bridge, so they'd have to go to Billy Graham's grandfather's house just down the path. So when I got out of the restroom, that's where we headed. We sat on the porch and laughed over each others' pictures and then Jeff got up and said we had to finish and go get the picture of what would have been in the silo except we would just get an angle on my face so it looked like I was up there. I wasn't sure why we were leaving Lianne and Mitch at that point, but I figured we'd finish the scavenger hunt. So we headed to a bench that was down the path from the house and he sat down. That's when he started acting nervous. He told me that he loved me and we talked for a bit and then he said we should get the picture because Lianne and Mitch had to go soon. So I stood up and he reached down to get the camera out, but when he turned around he was on one knee and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes (which apparently I paused for what seemed like ages to him), to which he replied, "Really?" I laughed and said, "Yes, of course!" We were both smiling ear to ear and he put the ring on my finger. Lianne got a picture of us from the porch.

 We headed up the path to show Lianne and Mitch. I couldn't stop smiling! They'd obviously known all along! Lianne wanted to get pictures, so we did! Here are just a few:

And here is the ring

The day was wonderful! The rain held off and the sky was blue till the end. As we took pictures it was getting cloudy. Jeff and I stayed behind for a bit after Lianne and Mitch left. We just wanted to sit and be with each other for a little while. Soon it started getting cold and dark with clouds, so we decided to head back to my house. We got there just in time. This will be an extra memorable day because there was a huge hail storm! The power even went out! 

We were going to go to a nice restaurant with a where there is rooftop dining, but they were closed because of the storm. So we went to O'Charley's and it was perfect. We got to spend time with each other and talk over the day. I am so happy we are engaged and it's just now starting to hit me that we're really going to get married! I cannot wait! Thank you all for sharing in our story and for loving us! We can't wait to continue sharing it with you!